Chaos reigns!

Chaos definitely reigns in the Lopez house this week! It started almost 2 weeks ago, with a phone call from my mom, saying that my Memere (my grandmother) was being admitted to the hospital for pneumonia, probably MRSA (methicillin-resistant staph aureus) - translation - a really nasty, hard to treat infection, complicated by her age and other numerous health issues. This phone call was at 11am. At 12:30 the phone rang, in the middle of the kids lunch - my mom again saying that it was not looking good for Mem... her blood pressure was constantly dropping, despite meds to keep it up. An hour later, a phone call from dad, saying that Mem had just passed. That was Monday, March 9.

This same week, Kate had Brett's preschool ebola virus from hell - high fever, nasty cold, etc. Yes, that's what I've named this virus that keeps going around our house in circles - the preschool ebola virus from hell. I honestly can't remember which night it was that week, but there was a night that her fever was so high that we could not get it down with Tylenol and Motrin. You know what worked - a nice LONG bath at midnight - which made Kate a much happier girl than taking more medicine. Thanks, Dr. Raasch for teaching me "Think Drugs First." It did absolutely nothing for my daughter's fever... the old grandma approach worked much better! Lesson learned.

Anyway, as you can imagine, my mom was stressed out dealing with her mom's sudden passing, and all of the planning and arrangements that we along with it. Wouldn't you know that she got the preschool ebola virus from hell too?! Just what she needed to deal with that week. Anyway, we had ALL of the family in town for the wake on Wednesday and funeral on Thursday. While it wasn't a joyous occasion, it was still great to see everyone. We had 15 out of 16 grandkids - pretty impressive! Overall, it was a great celebration of her life. She will be missed greatly.

By the end of the week, we thought Kate was better as her fever was gone and she was starting to get her spunky personality back, so we thought we were good to go. The weekend was rather uneventful, watching many many basketball games - some better than others.

Sunday night (a week ago today), Kate was up half the night, saying that her left ear hurt. So, Monday morning, we head to the pediatrician. Mind you, I never took her to the doctor when she had a fever for 4 days because I did take Brett to the doctor when he had it and they told me it was just a virus... I'm not wasting another copay for "it's just a virus." I fully anticipated a repeat of Brett's appointment, but they said that her ears look "barely infected" but headed that direction, so they gave us a prescription for amoxicillin. I won't get into how much I detest amoxicillin because it's never done a damn thing for either one of our kids, but I smiled and said thanks.

Fast forward through last week, more basketball games, a few work days, etc. and that gets us to today. Kate's ears seemed to have been clearing up, but the last day or two she's said her ears hurt again and she's queen grump-in-her-pants. This morning, after church, Todd noticed a nice rash all over her belly and back. Fabulous. Penicillin allergy? Probably. I didn't give her the dose tonight and gave her Benadryl all day today. We'll see what it looks like in the morning. Either way, I now seriously detest amoxicillin.

I do have some miscellaneous pictures from the last week - playing at home before naptime, a trip to the park, etc. Stay tuned!